The The Talamasca will be the third installment, following the titular secret society bent on containing supernatural beings that has already been introduced in both previous series. The six-episode season 1 is set to begin shooting in October under the auspices of showrunners John Lee Hancock and Mark Lafferty.

Per Deadline, Nicholas Denton has been cast in the lead role of The Talamasca as Guy Anatole. The actor is likely best known for his role as Valmont in the 2022 Starz miniseries adaptation of Dangerous Liasons, though he has also recently appeared opposite Paul Mescal and Saoirse Ronan in the science fiction movie Foe and played a major role in the Stan original comedy Jones Family Christmas. His character Anatole is a law student who has an encounter with the Talamasca that forces him to face buried secrets about his own mind. Read the full character description below:

Guy Anatole [is] a brilliant, handsome and sharp on the surface, but he’s always known his mind works a little differently. On the cusp of graduating law school, he is approached by a representative of the Talamasca, a secretive agency that monitors and protects us from the supernatural world. When Guy learns that the Talamasca has been tracking him since his childhood, he falls headlong into a world of secret agents and immortal beings who, up to now, have maintained a fragile balance with the mortal world. But for that balance to hold, and for Guy to survive, he will have to learn to embrace the dark, treacherous depths of his true and singular self.

What Nicholas Denton’s Character Means For The Talamasca

The Secret Society Remains Opaque So Far

These new character details for the Anne Rice’s Immortal Universe show reveal that the show's main character is not a part of the Talamasca at the time the show begins. This could indicate that the show is taking one of several approaches to the material. The first is that Guy Anatole is an audience surrogate who will learn about the secrets of the titular society at the same time as the viewer, expanding the world of the Talamasca one episode at a time.

However, the second option is that Anatole could remain largely in the dark about the operations of the Talamasca, only learning as much as he needs to in order to complete whatever mission his story arc requires of him. This would allow the show to explore more of the Talamasca than either preceding installment in the universe, but still keep their motives and operations largely mysterious and opaque. Because Guy Anatole is an original character who has never appeared in the Anne Rice books, there is no precedent for where the story will go.

Our Take On The New Talamasca Character

Guy Anatole Could Bring Fresh Energy To The Immortal Universe

Ultimately, the shape that the story of The Talamasca will take will become more clear as further characters are added around Guy Anatole. However, Guy himself already presents an intriguing mystery. As the franchise has covered vampires and witches in its extant shows, it is likely that his seemingly supernatural secret will have a different provenance than those of any of the entities that have been seen in the franchise before, bringing yet another fresh angle to the franchise's contemporary reimaginings of Rice's iconic works.

Source: Deadline